


.11 Teach me?

by LaPilar



Series: Star Wars Imagines/One-Shots [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Flirting at the end, Friendly fight, Gen, One Shot, Poe's cocky, Resistancefighter!reader, You're a badass, first person POV, nothing bonds two people quite like throwing punches, warrior!reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaPilar/pseuds/LaPilar
Summary: Poe gets a new hand-to-hand instructor, and it takes them some time to get used to each other.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Reader, Poe Dameron & You
Series: Star Wars Imagines/One-Shots [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1255886
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	.11 Teach me?

Kriff’s sake, D’Qar was hot. I peeled the back of my t-shirt off my skin for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning, but it restuck itself to my sweaty skin in seconds. I huffed and resigned myself to a hot morning of sparring.

“You asked for this,” I mumbled to myself, running a hand over one of the training blasters the captain had left out for me. He’d been nice enough, and I’d forgotten his name approximately three seconds after he told it to me. 

I hoped I’d remember it soon. He was one of the only people I knew on base. 

General Leia herself had requested me here from my previous station, a Resistance listening post in the Inner Rim. There’d only been about 50 staff there, which made D’Qar seem massive. This was where the bulk of the Resistance lived and worked. 

And now I was supposed to teach them all to defend themselves. The previous hand-to-hand instructor had died on his last mission. We couldn’t afford to keep our teachers off the battlefield. 

Despite the morbid end the last instructor had faced, I was excited for the fresh start and the promotion.

Or had been, until I’d felt the air this morning. It was hovering just short of 90 standard degrees, with humidity thickening the air to the point it felt like a warm wet cloth traveling down into my lungs. 

I’d flown in last night, and had my first classes today. This would be the first; the captain had sent me out here to this empty corner of the airfield with some boxes of supplies and told me the first class would be out shortly.

They were pilots. Of course. First class here and I got stuck with the proudest, most bullheaded members of the Resistance. Piloting came with a certain prestige, a certain panache. It attracted a certain type of being. On the off chance that being actually had a knack for it and lived past the first few missions, their confidence rose in spades.

“Maybe they’ll be different,” I tried to convince myself. “New recruits, or… something.”

A few minutes later I saw the group of them coming this way. They didn’t look like new recruits. Some were getting on in years, and all wore clothes that’d seen better days. They’d all ditched their stuffy orange flight suits in favor of standard training shorts and a variety of t-shirts and sleeveless tops. 

I checked my watch, rising from my spot on a shipping crate. They were just on time.

My eyes roved over them, making observations and assumptions. There were around 20 of them, and they all seemed friendly enough, chatting and laughing amongst themselves. Mostly humans, and mostly male. 

There was one near the front that I immediately picked out as a leader of sorts. He was tan, the sweat from the morning’s heat giving him a matching sheen. His curly dark hair and sharp jawline gave me a clue as to who he probably was- Poe Dameron. Self-professed best pilot in the Resistance.

Resistance fighters were regularly rotated through different bases and listening posts, and people back where I came from often gushed over Poe. Talking about his flirtatious manner, his devilish good looks and his skills in an X-wing (not to mention in bed). 

I refused to let myself be intimidated, but they were right about the devilish good looks.

“Morning,” I called out as they neared.

A chorus of varied replies came as they formed a half circle around me, squinting or holding hands over their foreheads to keep the sun out of their eyes. 

“I’m First Lieutenant Y/N Y/L/N. I’ve been with the Resistance for 3 or so years but never on the main base. I was told you all are pilots, is that true?”

Poe grinned at the woman next to him before turning to me. “Best pilots in the Resistance!” There were a few assenting whoops. 

“Glad to hear it. It makes these classes all the more important. Bad pilots are a dime a dozen in this galaxy; good ones are not. You’re not bad pilots. Keep the Resistance’s ships alive by practicing your piloting, and keep the Resistance’s pilots alive by practicing your hand-to-hand.”

There were nods and murmurs of assent. 

“We’ll start with some light sparring so I can assess where you’re all at and what progress you need to make. Pair off, grab some gloves, and make sure to stretch before you start.”

There was an even number, fortunately. It meant I wouldn’t have to get any sweatier than I already was. I walked amongst them as they began.

Initial thoughts? They knew what they were doing, but they hadn’t done it in a while. It’d make my job hard; it’s one thing to teach someone something entirely new and a very different thing to teach someone something they think they already know.

I pulled an ankle further out here, shoved elbows in closer to the body there. I’d made my way around the group, and was back by the man I thought was Dameron and his partner. 

He threw a punch, and I cringed, unable to stop myself from grabbing his still-outstretched arm. “Thumb outside the fingers,” I said, watching as he mirrored me and then dropping back. 

I turned to walk the other way, and caught him roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye. It made me stop in my tracks, and I pretended to watch a few others as I considered it. Despite the heat, I wasn’t in a bad mood. The morning seemed to be progressing fine. I’d let this one slide.

Two others distracted me then with the dangerous way they were sliding around the concrete. It took me a bit to get them sorted out and complete another circle. They got better as they warmed up. 

Which is why I was surprised to complete another circuit and find that Dameron was again pummeling his partners gloves with ham-fisted, sloppy, enclosed-thumb punches. 

I put my foot down. Literally, and metaphorically. I stood a few yards off, looking over the whole group as I let Dameron finish his little bout. As they smiled, chatted, and went to reset, I held a hand up. “Ease up, everyone.” I pointed at Poe then with two fingers, hands clasped together like I was on his side. “What’s your name, officer?”

The second I singled him out, his easy expression faltered and his face went guarded. He knew this couldn’t be good; he wasn’t entirely stupid. 

“Captain Poe Dameron, ma’am.”

Kriff. He outranked me, technically speaking. A pilot was one thing, a human male pilot was another. But a human male pilot who outranked me? Yikes. 

I steeled my face and refused to back down. The others were pacing around the edges of our conversation, close enough to hear clearly but far enough off that I couldn’t accuse them of snooping. 

“If you’d care to enlighten me, captain, what’s the most important body part when you’re flying an X-wing?”

I caught the double entendre as it left my mouth, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it then. I hoped my blush was unrecognizable on top of my already-flushed skin. 

A snicker ran through the pilots, and Dameron cast a smile behind him before answering me. “That’d be your brain.”

That was a better answer than I’d expected. I pushed on. “What’s the second most important?”

He had to think about that. “Hands, I’d say.”

Bingo. “I’d agree, Captain Dameron. So why is it that you seem determined to break a thumb before you ever make it back into your X-wing?”

His eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes didn’t leave mine. He was working it out.

“What?”

Or trying to, I guess.

“I told you ten minutes ago to punch with your thumb outside your hand, yet when I came back, you’d completely forgotten my advice. Why is that, Captain?”

His face reddened, visible even beyond his exertion. “Look, would you give me a break? I was on a mission last night; I didn’t get back until three in the morning-“

“Will the First Order give you a break?” I pressed, the words falling from my mouth with only half permission from my brain. It was a damn good retort, but truth be told I did feel sorry for him.

Still, I had a reputation to establish. If the best officers wouldn’t respect me, nobody would.

Besides, the General brought me here to do a job.

He was quiet for a few moments, fuming. When he spoke, his voice was tight, and hot with anger. “No, they won’t. I understand that. I know- I know what I’m doing.” The tone of his voice fell off with the last few words; he knew he’d fucked up. 

“If you really thought that, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”

He didn’t have an answer for that question, asked in the most simpering tone I could muster.

“Right. I was sent here to teach you all to fend for yourselves against the First Order, and that’s what I intend to do. Now-“ I’d turned to talk to the others, assuming we were done here, but he surprised me.

“I could take you.”

I pivoted back to face him again, my slow movement accompanied by excited whisperings running through the other pilots.

His face took me aback. Most of the anger had disappeared, and his cheeks were flaming red. He was almost smiling, and shrugged when he saw I was looking at him. “What do you think?”

What was he playing at?

I let my head dip to the side, unable to stop the little smile that alighted upon my lips. He wasn’t like any other man I’d ever met. He’d fallen from anger to amusement in a split second.

“I think you just bit off more than you can chew, flyboy.”

Whoops and jeers ran through the crowd, most of them directed at Dameron, who was still smiling. I took a pair of gloves from a crate and gestured for them all to follow, leading us to a nearby grassy knoll where I could throw him around without hurting either of us. 

The pilots formed a full circle around us, and I hoped that none of my supervisors were looking out the windows. It’d be hard to explain. 

Poe was doing some arm swings and toe touches, warming up, and I forced myself to do the same. I’d seen him fight; I knew I’d beat him. I worried about how to do it with as little damage to both of our egos as possible. I only wanted to knock him down a notch.

Besides, even if I’d only ever admit it under advanced torture methods, his biceps were making it hard to focus on touching my toes.

One of the pilots offered to call the fight, and I blurred everything else out after that. I sank easily into fight mode. Everything else disappeared, even the distractingly pretty hair on my opponent. 

Dameron was better than he’d been earlier. He kept light on his toes, bouncing around like a youngling. If he was a youngling, he was an eager one- in what seemed like two seconds, his right fist cracked out towards me. 

I hardly had time to register it. My muscles caught the movement before I did, and threw my arm out to block. 

His thumb was tucked neatly outside his fingers, where it should be. That shocked me enough that when he kicked out, he caught me unawares and sent me to the ground with a hearty grunt. He’d made contact with the side of the thigh; nothing was broken but there’d be a nasty bruise. 

The pain hurtled my mind back into the fight at the speed of light, and I scrambled away from him on my knees as he made to tackle me. 

He caught me under the right shoulder, and I writhed like a possessed woman trying to escape his steel grasp. I rolled to the right, onto my back, and he yelped in pain at the angle of his wrist. 

But a moment later he just rolled with me, fumbling to finally get a grip with his other hand on my upper arm. 

I needed back on top, and my mind failed to catch up before my thighs were propelling me into a backwards somersault, to land sprawled right across his chest.

His eyes were wide, and he’d dropped me from his grip in his shock. I threw a punch, gentle as I could make it, at the side of his head, battering his right ear but missing the more important eyes and nose and mouth. 

It was hard enough to stun him still, and I grabbed his wrists in my own steel grips, pinning them to the ground above his head. 

The roar of the other pilots could be heard above the roar of the blood in my head, but Dameron was, if anything, more frozen in place. His eyes were wide, darting between my face and his hands and my crotch, hot across his chest.

If I blushed at that, the hot color was lost in my blazing skin. “Had enough?” I asked loud enough for the others to hear, feeling and resisting the insane temptation to lean down and whisper it into his ear.

My muscles were tightly wound, expecting him to fight back at any moment. I was out of breath and in pain, but that was one of the shortest bouts I’d ever had. It couldn’t be over.

He tapped out. It was. 

I was stunned, confused as I rolled off him and sat in the grass. The only explanation that made sense made no sense. 

He propped himself up on his hands, squinting against the sunlight at all his comrades, voicing their thoughts loudly.

“She kicked your ass, Poe!”

“Yeah, I did get my ass kicked,” he agreed, not a hint of bashfulness to his voice. This was weird.

“Good thing too! Paid out for me 20/1; whaddaya think Poe?”

“I think I’m glad I didn’t get the opportunity to bet on myself.” He turned to me then, picking himself up off the ground as the din of conversation continued around us. “I yield- you’re better at this than me. Care to teach me sometime?”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” I replied drily, dusting my hands off on my thighs and making to pull myself up. 

He offered a hand, and I took it without hesitation, without thought. When he pulled me up it left me close to his ear for a moment, and my mouth did that thing again where it acted without my consent.

“In fact, captain, I can think of a lot of things I’d like to teach you.”

Call it a cocky post-win flirt, beating him at his own game, temporary insanity. I didn’t know what it was, but I was glad to see the small smile on his lips when we separated. 

“C’mon,” I called to the group. “We’re not done.” 

I led the way back towards the airfield, glad that nobody could see the smile that I couldn’t keep off my face. Maybe D’Qar wouldn’t be so bad after all.


End file.
